


Fit

by themantlingdark



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 20:59:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark
Summary: The rest of the world is an incomprehensible mess, but everything makes sense when they're together. College human au.





	Fit

  
  
  
  


“You’re just vain,” Odin said, when Thor said please use  _ she, her, hers _ ,  _ herself _ ,  _ sister _ ,  _ woman _ , and  _ daughter _ . Thor heard the disappointment in Frigga’s deliberately loud exhale. Having come out to her mother nearly a year ago, Thor knew the reaction was not to her half of the conversation.

“And you think vanity belongs to women,” Thor replied. “Anyway, I’m not really asking. Those are the words.”

“You’re my son,” Odin said, looking Thor in the eye, not realizing that his gaze had just lost the last of its power to convince her. “I don’t have any daughters.”

“Fair enough,” Thor said. 

 

She nodded goodnight to her mother, then rose from the table in unison with her brother and walked to the foyer. Behind her she could hear the legs of one chair honking against the wood floor and then the tap of footsteps drawing closer. She held the door and they walked together to the car.

“Stay in school,” Frigga said, and immediately joined her children in laughing at her having said something so absurd. “You know what I mean,” she huffed, lightly elbowing them and narrowing her eyes in a mock scold. “Don’t do anything drastic. Stay in your apartment and keep going to classes and I’ll sort everything out one way or another.”

Thor and Loki nodded and said thank you in unison.

“Will you be all right?” Thor asked. 

Frigga sighed and gave a slow shrug, lifting her arms a few inches away from her sides, palms out. Her blue pashmina and long skirt made her look even more like a statue of Mary. There had been a little painted plaster Madonna in their aunt Kelly’s garden. Thor was always petting it when she was small. Tracing its features. Mary’s heel was bruising itself by crushing a serpent’s head. Back then Thor had thought it cruel, but remembering the image now felt like becoming fluent in a second language.

“Yes,” Frigga said finally.

“ _ Mom _ ,” Loki said.

“I  _ will _ ,” she defended, more confident, if a bit grim. “‘All right’ might not be quite what I was expecting it to be. But  _ yes _ . Anyway, it’s not your job to worry about me, it’s mine to worry about you.”

They hugged her for nearly a minute each and kissed their goodnights onto her cheeks.

 

“Want me to drive?” Loki asked, and Thor nodded and handed over the keys.

“Text me when you’re home,” Frigga called, which she hadn’t done in nearly a year, but which her children were surprised to find comforting.

“Will do,” Thor smiled, and waved one last time as she sank into the passenger seat and shut the door.

Loki fiddled with the mirrors for a moment before they set out on the three hour drive back home.

“Well,” Loki said, “I guess it could have been worse.”

This yielded a snort from Thor.

“Am I just like Rosencrantz, imagining life in a coffin as ‘Well, at least I’m not dead,’?” Loki asked, and Thor gave a small but genuine laugh.

“I think that might be everyone about life in general rather than me about this in particular,” Thor said.

“I still feel like we’re going to get home and find the water and electricity shut off or the locks changed or something.”

“I know,” Thor sighed. “I’m taking comfort in the knowledge that he hires people to do pretty much everything for him these days. He probably can’t actually be fucked to bother with me… plus I think Mom’s about to scare the shit out of him.”

“Yeah, I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that.”

“She’s always so considerate about handing his ass to him in private,” Thor griped.

“Hashtag MasculinitySoFragile,” Loki smiled, and saw Thor nod before she lowered the back of her seat and reclined with her hands clutching her stomach. 

“Feeling sick?” 

“It’s… I mean I could sneeze without incident,” she said, and Loki shook with silent laughter. “It’s like that feeling of waiting for the bus on the first day of school.”

“Mmm,” Loki nodded, remembering the buzzing knot in the gut that meant summer fun was over and an unwished for unknown lay immediately ahead. “Not quite a cramp, but too nasty to be butterflies.”

“Exactly,” Thor said. “Just... dread.”

 

It was ten rather than the expected midnight when they texted their mother to tell her they were home. Loki’s secret silver lining was two fewer hours with Odin and two more hours alone with Thor. They kicked off their shoes and then flexed and stretched their toes as they went through the apartment, opening windows and closing curtains, loving the give of the thick carpet under their stocking feet. When they had moved in, Loki had told his sister she could have free rein with the decorating. It wasn’t Loki being lazy or indifferent, though it had certainly looked that way at the time. And it wasn’t that he didn’t care. He wanted to know what Thor liked and wanted. What she would do. It was a means of living in her head. They had grown up with hardwood and high ceilings. Rugs that cost more than cars. Professional decorators had dictated their home, right down to their bedrooms. It had always been a bit like living in a magazine. A surface. Pretty, but flat. More a house than a home.

 

The original carpeting in their unit had been a horrible brown-gold shag from the seventies, worn thin in all the highly trafficked areas. Before she signed the lease, Thor had gone to the landlord with a carpet sample and said she’d only take the flat if she could redo the floor. The landlord had raised her eyebrows at the quality of the sample, then shrugged and said “It’s your money.” So now it was dense, off-white saxony with a good pad underneath, making it thick enough that if you tripped and fell, you’d probably come away from it without a bruise. Before the old shag had been ripped out, Thor had washed every surface in the place. 

“Since when are you such a neat freak?” Loki had grumbled, lending a hand as they’d scrubbed the ceiling with trisodium phosphate. 

“Do you want to bump up against forty years’ worth of other people’s lives? Smoke, fingerprints, shed skin, cat piss, everything they tracked in on their shoes, and god knows what else?” Thor had asked, watching Loki’s nose wrinkle up. Loki had said that, since she put it that way,  _ no _ , he didn’t want anything to do with any of those things. “It’s the carpet that grosses me out the most,” Thor had admitted. “I like to sit on the floor when I do my homework.” 

“I always thought that was because none of the furniture in Mom and Dad’s house was comfortable.” 

Thor had laughed and said that that was true, but that desks never felt like big enough work surfaces, and sitting at them was so much like being at a dinner table it always made her hungry.  

 

Nearly everything Thor brought into their new home was was white, with texture to add variety. A throw blanket, graphic rug, or piece of art added pattern or color, but not to the point of noisiness or clutter. It was bright, with the light reflecting off of almost every surface rather than being absorbed. Their childhood home felt like a cave now in comparison. Still, the sectional had been a shock to Loki’s sensibilities, though it was by far the most attractive he had seen of its kind. 

“I know, I know,” Thor had smiled, when Loki got out of class and found the thing sitting in their living room. “But you’ll see,” she’d assured. 

And she’d been right. It was perfectly soft, deep enough for their six-plus foot frames, and, with the ottoman, you could put your feet up from every angle. Loki had cursed as he’d sagged into it. 

“I feel like everything I know is a lie,” he’d moaned, wiggling himself further down into the cushions. 

“We should make up for lost time,” Thor had said, hurling herself lengthwise onto the longest part of the couch. Then she had turned on the bagel episode of  _ Baking with Julia  _ and they’d lost the rest of the day to comfort and carbs.

 

“Run?” Thor asked, coming out of her room in shorts and a t-shirt that had been handed out during freshmen orientation. The top had since been worn so thin with running and laundering that it had become beautiful. It moved almost weightlessly and, when the light was right, Thor’s nipples peeked though, which was enough to improve just about anything in Loki’s estimation.

“Is your stomach up to it?” Loki asked, hoping Thor would have second thoughts about exercise, then getting a sinking feeling as he watched her put her hair up in a tight bun and pin it into place with bobby pins.

“Yeah, and I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep if I don’t wear myself out, so...”

“So what you’re really saying is  _ sprint _ , not just  _ run _ ,” Loki sighed.

“Correct,” Thor smiled, with mocking brightness.

“God, why can’t you just be like the Danny DeVito twin?” Loki asked, and then inwardly winced at himself and braced for a frown from his sibling. But she was still smiling and shaking her head. “Nope, we’re both Schwarzeneggers. Go get dressed.”

“Ugh, fine,” Loki whined, and trudged off to his room to put on his hideous workout clothes and go running with his sadistic sister.

 

Thor always wore Loki out when they ran, but this was the first time Loki had ever seen her wear herself out. She had lapped him. When he made the turn for his last hundred and fifty meters, he could see her silhouetted in front of a street light, bent over with her hands on her thighs, resting and gasping after finishing her last quarter mile at a flat out gallop.

“Are you gonna puke?” Loki panted, when he finally caught up to her.

“No,” Thor puffed. “You?”

“I’ll keep you posted,” Loki wheezed, and dropped onto his back on the rubbery surface of the track. “Have you ever puked from running?”

“No, Thor said. “Threw up in my mouth one time when I went off the diving board too soon after eating dinner though.”

“Oh god, we have to talk about something else,” Loki groaned. “Thinking about it is gonna make me sick.”

“Do you have school work to do tomorrow?” Thor asked.

“How is that subject an improvement?”

“I’ll take that as a  _ yes _ .”

“Yeah, but not much. Why? Something you want to do?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe see a movie,” Thor shrugged. “Something…”

“Distracting,” Loki finished, and Thor nodded.

 

When they could breathe a bit more respectably, Thor peeled Loki off the ground and they trudged back toward their apartment. Loki fought his sopping t-shirt over his head and used it to mop up his sweat, though his skin was soaked again within seconds of being dried off.

He watched Thor’s hands go for the hem of her own shirt, then saw them freeze.

“No one should have to cover their breasts,” Loki reminded, scrubbing at the rivulets of perspiration that felt like insects crawling down his neck.

“I know,” Thor defended, frowning. “I just… feel like I’m cheating or getting away with something.”

“You’re the one getting cheated all day, every day, Thor. Take whatever you can get out of America’s cold, dead hands.”

Thor grinned and pulled her top off, then spun herself in circles to make a breeze move over her body.

“Better?” Loki asked.

“So much better,” Thor sighed. “I feel like a neon flashing ‘open’ sign for mosquitoes though.” 

“Fuck,” Loki said, and began to trot while he swatted at himself with his t-shirt as a precaution.

“I can’t believe you’re running again already,” Thor laughed, following suit.

“I know. I hate myself for it.”

 

Loki told Thor to take the first shower and to please use all the hot water, as he did not wish to see any until some time in December.

 

When Loki finished his own shower, the apartment was quiet and mostly dark. Only the dim light over the sink was still on, humming almost silently, singing of home. As a rule, Thor did not go to bed without saying goodnight, but no light was coming out from under her door. Loki held his breath and paused for a moment in the hall, listening, but he heard nothing, so he went to his room. 

 

Not wishing to chase away the welcome chill his skin had picked up in the shower, Loki stretched out naked on top of his sheets with his arms and legs spread wide. The only places where his body was in contact with itself were the insides of his fingers and toes and the junction where his cock lay slumped across his balls, stupidly making a warm spot.

 

A sound came through the wall, unmuffled thanks to Loki’s open closet doors. In some kinder world it could have been a cough and Loki could have closed his eyes and gone, unworried, off to sleep. But a second sob followed. Then a third. Loki flipped on the lamp and got up to sift through his dresser for boxers and a tank top. 

 

The light was still off in Thor’s room. For half a second, Loki considered knocking, but ultimately nixed the idea because it would give his sister an out; a chance for _No,_ _I’m fine. It’s nothing. Sorry I woke you up. Go back to sleep._ So he opened the door and felt his way through the dark. The air was sweet with the floral perfume of the lotion she always put on after she bathed. Loki caught traces of the shampoo and body wash they shared mingling with other scents: the slightly sour bite of good moisturizer; the sweat and fresh air that clung to her running clothes, floating up from where they lay in the hamper. In the center of the room, he heard the faint whir of the ceiling fan as its swirling breath ghosted down across his skin. Two more steps brought him to the side of Thor’s bed. He cautiously perched on the edge of the mattress, letting his eyes adjust until he could make out her shape beneath the sheets.

“Beds should be for nice things and sleeping,” Loki whispered.

“We can’t have nice things,” Thor joked. Her voice was almost too thick and choked to form the words.

“Come on,” Loki coaxed, reaching until his fingers found a hip, then tugging it lightly and feeling his sister’s warm body rocking gently with the motions of his hand. “Let’s go to the sofa.”

 

Thor never bothered with pajamas after her showers either, so she tugged the sheet off the bed and wore that over her underwear. She curled up in the corner of the couch with all the pillows while Loki got cups of cold water and a box of tissues.

“I was really hoping I could just sleep through this part,” Thor sighed.

“Pretty sure you don’t get to skip over this sort of shit. But better now than in the middle of class on Monday.”

“True,” Thor sniffed. 

Loki watched her stare blankly for a few moments, then saw her eyes tear up again.

“What’s the broken record saying?” Loki asked, and got a weak laugh from Thor for the effort, which seemed a better result than he had any right to hope for.

“That I should have just kept my mouth shut,” Thor said, then crumpled and choked.

“No,” Loki insisted, shaking his head and squeezing Thor’s ankle where it rested beside him.

“I’ve hardly come out to anyone. I could have just left it that way. I feel like I got greedy and pushed him and now I don’t know what’s going to happen to Mom-”

“Shhhh,” Loki soothed. “She’ll be fine. She’s stronger than he is.”

“I know, but she just retired. She’s supposed to be enjoying herself. And now I’m scared she just got her heart broken and she might have to start from scratch. And all the stress can’t be good for her.”

“She knows the score now,” Loki said. “You haven’t put her in a tough spot. He did this to her--and to you. This is all on him.”

Loki heard Thor take a shaky breath and clear her throat, so he waited a moment, but no words came from her.

“Anyway, it isn’t greedy to expect support from a fucking parent.”

“But he’s always been so stubborn,” Thor excused.

“That’s just a nice word for  _ wrong  _ and _ bigoted  _ and _ wilfully ignorant _ .”

Thor rubbed her face where her tears were making it itch. She tucked her hair behind her ears to keep it from clinging to her wet cheeks.

“I wish I’d done it differently,” she said. “I always freeze up and go all cold and monosyllabic when I’m pissed and I hate it. I should have stayed and talked to him. Argued, even. Now all the points I could’ve made are just...” she waved her hand in a little circle in the air, then shook her head and swiped a tissue from the box on Loki’s lap.

“Thor, if you tell someone water is wet and they say that it isn’t, I don’t think arguing the point will be a worthwhile use of your time. He can educate himself. It isn’t your responsibility. He’s old as balls. He should know all this shit already.”

She nodded tightly, but her face was breaking again and soon the sobs were louder than the ones that had come through the bedroom wall. Loki could think of nothing better to do then curl up on his side with his head on Thor’s hip and reach up to rub her back until it passed. 

 

After half an hour, the tears let up enough that Thor could dry her cheeks without instantly wetting them again. Five minutes after that she was quiet, though her breathing was still uneven and it hitched from time to time. She shifted on the sofa, so Loki sat up to stop pinning her down with his head. 

 

Her face was swollen and her expression twisted down at every feature. Her skin, usually a smooth peach-gold, was now a blotchy red with pale streaks where the tears had cooled it as they fell. She looked so unlike herself Loki might not have recognized her if they’d passed on the street. Now he would know her anywhere like this for the rest of his life.  

 

He handed her a cup and listened to her throat. Water spilled down her chin as she hastily drained it. She pressed the glass to her face and rolled it across her features, grateful for its cold sweat and the smooth perfection of its surface. Loki remembered that there was a cucumber in the crisper. When Thor was ready to rest, he’d slice it up into disks for her eyes and strips for her face and set them on her skin while she lay in bed listening to music.

 

Loki watched Thor’s lips tighten, part, shut, tighten, and open again. He put his arm around her shoulders and gave them a light, coaxing squeeze, hoping to encourage whatever it was she wanted to say.

“I’d been planning to go home for the summer,” she murmured. “Most of it, anyway. He’s getting so old and... we’ve only got two summer vacations left unless we go to grad school. I’m always afraid-”

Loki nodded as Thor choked up again. She would miss their father. Loki knew now that he would not. Thor’s love seemed to be their mother’s sort: patient and unwavering. Loki’s was conditional upon Odin’s love for Thor being unconditional. It was strange to know that that was the limit. He wondered if that made him as bad as Odin, but decided no, only a complete idiot could fail to fully love Thor. Loki had gotten that much right in life at least. 

“It’s just,” Thor began, then paused and shook her head as she suppressed another round of sobs. “I didn’t want him to be like all the strangers who don’t know who I really am. And now instead of ending that I just made him into a different sort of stranger.”

“ _ He _ did,” Loki reminded, jostling his sister softly, trying to shake the words into her core. “Not you. And summer’s still eight months away. Things could change between now and then.”

Loki let his eyes run along the folds in Thor’s rumpled bedsheet and listened to the whisper of cotton under his fingers as he rubbed her arm.

“Sorry,” Thor said and Loki shook his head no.

“You have nothing to be sorry about.”

“You have work to do tomorrow and I dragged you out running and now I’m keeping you up until-” Thor craned her neck to check the clock on the microwave, “two in the morning. Fuck.”

“Shush, it’s fine,” Loki soothed. “Go get in bed and put some music on. I’ll be in in a minute with something.”

Thor hummed and unfolded herself, then climbed from the couch. When Loki heard her go into the bathroom he went to the kitchen to slice up the cucumber. 

 

“Close your eyes,” Loki said, peeking his head around her doorframe, keeping the surprise out of sight.

“That sounds like the sort of request a person immediately regrets granting,” Thor smiled, shutting her eyes anyway.

“Definitely,” Loki agreed, and leaned over to put the vegetable mask on her face, making her jump and giggle at the slimy touch of its chilly flesh. 

  
  


Loki woke first and went out to the kitchen to get his work done before his sister got up. When he’d finished, he texted his mother to see how things had gone on her end. She said Odin had unhelpfully clammed up and petrified, so it might be a few days before she could get a picture of what was going on. She asked about Thor. Loki admitted that last night had been rough, but probably not as rough as it would have been on someone weaker, and that she was still asleep. Frigga asked to be kept posted and to have Thor text her when she woke up.

 

It was a little after one when Thor finally came out of her room.

“Sleep okay?” Loki asked.

“Like a log. Can’t remember any dreams though, so it kind of feels like it was a short night.”

She went through the apartment opening curtains and blinds and letting the light in. It was the third week in September. The sun was drifting further south every day, making the nights crisp and ripe for sleeping and the days slightly hazy and seldom too hot. 

“Text Mom,” Loki remembered, and Thor grunted an affirmative and went back to her room for her phone.

Her mother had no answers for her and Thor had only questions, so there was little more to say than  _ I’m okay. _

 

“Still want to do a movie?” Loki asked, when Thor set her phone aside. 

“Haven’t looked at what’s playing yet,” Thor admitted, so Loki pulled up the listings on his laptop and read them off. Thor made a low sound of disappointment at the cinematic offerings and got herself a bowl of cereal. 

 

Loki watched his sister’s robe sway and swirl around her ankles as she moved through the kitchen. The fabric was a fine grey knit the shade of thunderheads. Her skin showed bright and warm against it, almost seeming to glow. She had painted her toenails a pink-coral that was a perfect match for the color that occurred when she was backlit and the sun shone through her ear. Loki wondered if it had been intentional. He thought it was a shame that she didn’t go out in just nail varnish and a robe every day, floating through homogenous shops and classrooms like a myth. It seemed a wonder that no witch had ever come along to stop her with an apple or a spinning wheel. 

“The cider mills opened on Labor Day,” Loki tried, and Thor hummed a very pleased sound at this. 

 

They decided to visit two, since last year they had discovered that one had perfect cider--perfect being unpasteurized--and another had donuts that were fried crisp on the outside, but soft and fluffy on the inside, served hot, rolled in sugar and spices, bordering on orgasmic.

 

“Shit, we forgot to shave last night,” Thor groaned, joining Loki in the bathroom to brush her teeth while he fixed his hair before they headed out.

Loki shrugged. 

“You’ll be all sparkly red-gold in the sun and I’ll be that dirty grey color you see on bodies that were mummified by permafrost.”

Thor gave a silent, shaking laugh and an enormous grin at this. Loki felt a small thrill run through his center. He could only liken it to what he imagined rivers felt as salmon swam against their currents.

  
  


When they stepped out of the car, the scent of apples hit them instantly. Hundreds of other people had had Loki’s idea. The line wrapped all the way around the building, but it was moving quickly and pleasantly. There were dogs to pet and wasps to shoo away. People to watch. The sun warmed Thor and Loki’s legs, its heat amplified by their dark jeans, while the breeze slipped under their flannel shirts to tickle their waists. Within fifteen minutes they were at the counter, stepping up in unison.

“What can I get for you guys?” chirped an admirably perky clerk. Loki saw Thor blink and felt the half-beat hitch in her rhythm at being hit with the vagaries of “guys,” which pretended to be chummy and unisex while really it made masculine the default.

“Uh, half a dozen spiced donuts, please,” Thor said, and handed over exact change, earning a heartfelt “Oh  _ perfect _ \--thank you,” from the hurried clerk.

 

Their trip to the second mill passed in much the same way and left them with plenty of daylight. They sat at a picnic table eating their donuts and taking turns swigging cider out of the jug.

“What’s next?” Loki asked. 

“Something outside,” Thor decided.

“Zoo?” Loki said, and Thor nodded. 

 

They wandered through the exhibits, eating cotton candy and ice cream, staring like children at the oddities wrought by evolution. The giraffes and their new calf arrested the twins’ attention for over twenty minutes. They stood smiling at the baby’s big eyes and strangely perfect feet. At its pattern, which, like its parents’, was as unique as a fingerprint. After due consideration,  _ I want that baby  _ was their conclusion.

 

They picked up fried chicken and coleslaw on their way home and then collapsed on the sofa to eat while they watched cooking shows. When the food was gone, they worked on Thor’s shoemaking homework, with Loki playing mannequin as Thor adjusted her latest pattern around him, tailoring it to herself after she got the basic shapes worked out. 

 

She was studying physics, but Hogun was in the fashion program. Thor was a fixture there in her free time, as Hogun liked to design clothes for her and she liked to hear everything he’d learned. Last spring, during enrollment for their sophomore year, he had come up to her with something more like nervousness than like his usual reserve.

“Remember when you said you could never find shoes you liked in your size?” he had asked. She’d replied yes, shoes were still the bane of her existence. That admission had given him a bit more confidence. “They’re offering a shoemaking elective in the fall,” he’d told her. “Priority is for fashion majors and it might fill up, but I talked to Holly and she said if you can’t get in, you’d be welcome to audit it. I thought maybe that way you could finally have shoes that-” Thor had yelled a delighted  _ yes! _ as she picked Hogun up and spun him in a circle. She’d then kissed both of his cheeks, set him back on the ground, and told him that he was, officially,  _ the best. _

 

Thor loved the class. There would be three more semesters of it, each building on the last, and, if her schedule allowed it, she intended to audit all of them. She vowed, by December, to have a cute pair of kitten heels that didn’t hurt but still looked hot.

 

When December came, she had not one, but three pairs of perfect kitten heels, which she wore any time the weather was good, not wanting to ruin the leather with road salt and slush. There were never any blisters at the end of the evening, even when it had included dancing. She thought it was a shame so few people in the world would ever know what it felt like to walk in shoes that were entirely their own.

 

In the spring she modeled the designs Hogun made for his fashion finals while Peter photographed them. They did a three-way trade: Thor got some of the clothes, then bought the rest; Hogun got the photos; and Peter got Thor’s guidance in how to properly lift weights, along with Thor’s freshman year physics notes, which she no longer needed.

 

Holly hired Thor as an assistant for the summer. She’d received a commission from a designer to make shoes to accompany a fall collection, and Thor’s knack for cobbling was almost alarming. Thor got to familiarize herself with the studio, make shoes for herself in her free time, and figure out which pieces of equipment would be essential if she ever wanted to set up a shop of her own.

  
  
  


News from their mother came often, but was always short on content. When Loki asked Frigga outright if she was ever going to leave Odin she said, no, that would feel like hypocrisy. Loki knew that that was fair, but was still entirely at ease with his own double standards. 

 

Nothing changed with Thor’s college fund, trust, or other accounts. Loki supposed no news was good news, but wondered if Thor had been right when she’d said their father probably couldn’t be bothered with her.

  
  
  


Autumn of their junior year brought soothing grey and rain and the soft, thin sweaters Thor loved. She looked so inviting in them Loki could rarely resist hugging her as she stood at the sink or the counter. He belted her waist with his arms and pressed his cheek to the cashmere that covered her shoulder, then paused to breathe her in. He found the traces of perfume that clung to her hair. Caught the real scent of her underneath them, slightly nutty and milky-sweet. Every now and again he dug his fingers into her ribs to tickle her, then gave a farewell backhand to her ass and fled the scene before she could retaliate. But most often he simply stood, holding onto her and swaying slightly, as she covered his arms with her own and craned her neck to see his face. He always meant to hide it, knowing his own expression hid nothing, but then he would have missed her smiles and the waste would have been unforgivable.

 

Thor acquired a pumpkin or two on every trip she made to the grocery store. They slowly filled the window sills and tinted the living room orange with the light that reflected off their skin. 

 

Through dinner each night, Thor was distracted. She often failed to catch Loki’s questions until he was at the tail end of them, then had to ask him to repeat himself. If he mentioned a movie or TV show they’d watched together recently, she rarely recognized it. Some nights Loki would wake to the sound of the front door shutting and the bolt locking. When he looked out the window he saw his sister, sensibly dressed in white to stand out against the darkness, jogging off in the direction of the track to go running for a second time. 

 

If Loki hadn’t known better he’d have said she was having a bad reaction to the increase in pumpkins. He wondered if the waning daylight was taking its toll. If she’d had a nasty message from their father. If she was lonely. If she’d started HRT and hadn’t mentioned it, embarrassed because she’d previously said she didn’t want it. If something horrible had happened and it hurt too much to talk about it. 

“What’s going on?” Loki asked, waiting up on the sofa at four am, catching her as she came in from her sprints. “You’ve been like this for weeks.”

“I know,” Thor soothed, toeing off her shoes and taking down her hair. She always spoke softly in the dark, even when there was no one to wake. “I’ve just been thinking. Can’t really think my own thoughts while I’m in class or doing homework.”

She dropped down on the sofa beside him, strings cut, arms and legs akimbo. Her clothes held the crisp scent of cold air and dessicated green that only came in autumn. The clean sweat on her skin underpinned it with salt and musk that made Loki want to stuff his face into her armpit and stay there until spring.

“Thinking about what?” he asked, and she huffed a small, mirthless laugh.

“Myself, I guess. Vain, eh? Maybe he was right.” 

“No,” Loki said, and dropped his head onto her shoulder.

“I’m almost there,” she whispered, and twisted her neck so that she could kiss the top of his head. “I’m just dragging my feet.”

On a sunny Saturday morning at the end of October, the twins stood at the kitchen island, aggressively gutting all their pumpkins. The weather was warm and the squirrels were frantic outside, taking advantage of the free squash and dried corn everyone had set out to decorate their doorsteps.

“We should dress up as Dumbledore and H Pot again,” Loki said.

“The costumes she made for us that year were so good it was ridiculous,” Thor remembered. “It was like, ‘Everyone go home, Frigga Borrsson just won Halloween forever.’”

“Exactly,” Loki laughed, and looked up when he felt that his sister’s face was still pointing at his own. “What?” Loki asked. Thor narrowed her eyes and briefly held her breath before she spoke.

“When you think of me in the past, am I a boy or a girl in your mind?”

Loki blinked. His nostrils flared and his mouth hung open a moment. She could always tell when he was lying now, so there was no point in attempting it. 

“Boy,” Loki admitted, and pinched his lips shut after the word had left them, as though he’d just bitten into a lemon. “And then I have to kick myself in the ribs and correct it.”

Loki watched Thor smile, slowly, but not at all sadly.

“Me too,” she whispered, grinning now. 

Loki’s face went smooth and slightly white.

“It’s never gone away exactly,” she said, plunging a knife into the top of another pumpkin and sawing a neat lid around its stem. “It’s like Santa Claus. I still remember when it  _ was _ real to me, I just can’t believe in it anymore. 

“Matryoshka doll,” Loki said.  

Thor nodded and pulled the top of the pumpkin off, then sliced away the innards that were dangling from the cap.

“Lately I-” Thor began, and Loki heard the lump that formed in her throat and tripped up her words. She took a deep breath and rolled her head on her neck, then tried again. “I’ve been wondering how I managed to keep believing in the Easter bunny,” she laughed, scooping seeds and stringy flesh onto the old magazine pages that were spread across the countertop.

“Because if boys aren’t real,” Loki said, picking up the thread, softly encouraging her. 

“Then girls aren’t either,” Thor finished. She looked up at the ceiling and groaned long and loud while tears leaked out the corners of her eyes. “God, I feel like such a fucking ridiculous pain in the ass.”

“ _ They _ ,  _ them _ ,  _ theirs _ , and  _ siblings _ ?” Loki guessed, and Thor dropped their head and started laughing.

“Yeah.” 

“Done and done,” Loki nodded. 

“God, what’s Mom gonna call me?” Thor sighed.

“Problem child,” Loki offered, and Thor elbowed him but laughed anyway. “My oldest--by thirty-six minutes. My bipedal golden retriever. Mostly  _ Thor _ , though, I’ll bet,” Loki smiled, knocking their shoulders together. 

 

Following the logic  _ If I have to come out of the closet again I better get a fucking Kit-Kat bar out of it _ , Thor took the Halloween candy down from its not-quite-hiding place in the cupboard with the gravy boat and other dishes they seldom had occasion to use. The technique always extended chocolate’s life by a few days, which was, however marginally, better than nothing. The candy sparked their appetites so they stopped to make sandwiches and eat a proper lunch.

“I’m gonna message everyone about my pronouns,” Thor sighed, after they’d cleared their plates.

“This is what you’ve been brooding about” Loki said, once Thor had finally pressed send on the mass text.

“Yeah.”

“When did it start percolating?” 

“When I came out to Jane while she was back in the states over the summer,” Thor said, and watched as Loki went still with the fierce attention he always paid at the mention of that name. “She sort of hummed and then sat there thinking,” Thor continued. “At first I thought maybe she was trying to figure out what it meant for her own sexuality or something. But then she just said ‘Huh,’ and asked what the difference meant--what, beyond the words, belonged to men that didn’t belong to women, and vice versa. Not questioning  _ me _ , just  _ questioning _ … almost thinking out loud. We just sat there mouth-breathing for five minutes before we gave up and went out for mojitos and ceviche.” 

“Think you’ll see any pronoun changes on Jane’s end then?” Loki asked.

Thor’s phone chimed with a text, the contents of which bent Thor in half with laughter that wouldn’t stop. Loki took the phone when it was offered and found Jane’s reply to the pronoun news:  _ Welcome aboard :) _

 

They set up an assembly line for the carving. Given the number of jack-o’-lanterns they had to do, they skipped the elaborate designs they had favored as teenagers and went with the classic: triangles for eyes and noses, and wide grins with sparse teeth. Loki had a tall, smooth knife for the angles; Thor had a small serrated blade for the curves of the mouths.

“You saw Jane on August twenty-sixth,” Loki noted, reaching inside his pumpkin and popping the features out through the front. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while.”

“Yeah,” Thor agreed, carefully sawing around a tooth. “I kept hoping I’d see a way around it. But I couldn’t find  _ woman _ or  _ she _ anymore. This just  _ fit _ . I was almost annoyed.”

“How come?”

“I’ve been dreading coming out again, I guess,” Thor shrugged. “And afraid of becoming completely invisible _. She_ is something people recognize. _They_ reminds me of when I tell people I’m an atheist. I’m afraid people feel insulted, like they think I’m saying they’re idiots. I’m afraid they think _I’m_ an idiot. Afraid we’re speaking different languages and they don’t really know what I mean or who I am--or that they think _I_ don’t know who I am.”

Loki nodded and passed his pumpkin to Thor for its next round of surgery. 

 

By four-thirty they were finished carving and had to deal with all the guts and chunks of orange that had found their way to the kitchen floor. Afterward, Thor wanted to go jogging while the warm weather was holding and the sun was still up. As far as nerve-racking days went, this one had been quite pleasant--the replies to Thor’s text had been supportive, though they had not been sent to anyone likely to react otherwise. Pumpkin carving with Loki was comfortably familiar, and relaxing in its requirement of just the right amount of concentration. But nervous energy was still coursing through Thor’s veins, driving an urge to move. If Thor didn’t run, the restlessness would result in pacing, fidgeting, repetitive hair-braiding, mindless snacking, cuticle-biting, and staring at Pinterest until the crushing sense of incompetence and inadequacy it inspired sent Thor to bed in a sulk.  

“Run?” Thor asked.

“I hate you,” Loki whined, but he rolled off the sofa and went to get changed just the same.

 

It was cool enough that they didn’t get too hot, which put Loki in a good mood. And they paused often on their way, admiring the miniature cemeteries and horror scenes people had installed on their front lawns. The plastic skeletons and foam tombstones made them feel like kids again.

  
  


After the sun went down, they lit votives in all their pumpkins, then turned off the lights to better enjoy the flickering glow of the jack-o’-lanterns’ faces. Thor opened a window to let in the breeze. It made the flames leap and set the shadows dancing on the walls. The twins sat on the sofa, admiring their handiwork and sipping hard cider from chilly glass bottles. Loki put a Bauhaus-heavy mix of eighties goth rock on his phone. The low voices and slow, driving basslines made his eyelids heavy.

“Why do you always look like you just shit your pants when I mention Jane?” Thor asked, leaning into Loki, which shifted him and woke him up a bit.

“You two were so perfect together I could hardly stand it,” Loki said.

 

It had been meant as a throw-away answer, neither here nor there, but when Loki heard it come out of his mouth it sounded overly defensive and rather horribly like truth. He drained his cider, rinsed the bottle in the sink, said goodnight, and went to his room. 

 

Thor saw Loki’s phone sitting on the table and smiled. Loki would wait until they went to bed before he came out to retrieve it. Thor finished their cider at a leisurely pace. When it was gone, they blew out the candles in the pumpkins and closed the window to block the rain that was due at six in the morning. Then they turned the music off on Loki’s cell, pocketed the thing, and went to get ready for bed.

 

The faint light from the bedside lamp was peeking out under Loki’s door when Thor passed by after brushing and flossing. Thor could almost see Loki sitting up in bed, waiting for the coast to clear. Thor opted to go to the kitchen and loudly put away the dishes that were drying in the rack rather than go to sleep.

 

Thor was willing to consider the possibility that this was unfair to Loki. The two of them were in a sort of stalemate on this subject, and it was as much their move to make as it was Loki’s. But twice now Thor had offered up raw, terrifying truths. Just once it would've been nice to be the one standing on solid ground rather than the one taking the leap. Loki had been lapped when it came to difficult admissions. And the admission Loki had to make was a safe one. The fact that it had, nonetheless,  _ not _ been made told Thor that Loki was unaware of that safety.

 

Thor dried the last plate and put it away in the cupboard, then turned out the lights and went down the hall.

“You awake?” Thor called softly, tapping on Loki’s door with the tip of one finger.

“Yeah.”

Thor turned the knob and went in. Loki was sitting cross-legged on his bed, shutting his laptop and setting it aside on the nightstand. 

“Your phone,” Thor said, handing it over so that Loki could plug it in to charge.

“Everything okay?” Loki asked, when Thor sat down beside him.

Thor nodded and looked around Loki’s bedroom. It was the only room they hadn’t decorated, but to look at it no one would know that. The same palette carried through from the rest of the apartment: white linens and upholstery, unstained wood, colorful art on the walls and bright green plants lining the windowsill.

“Thanks for today,” Thor said. “For not making me feel stupid.”

“You’re not stupid.”

Thor made a deliberately wincing smile and gave a doubtful tip of the head at this. 

“I’m lucky,” Thor said, and dropped down against the pillows to watch Loki stare. “Does that sound stupid?”

“Optimistic,” Loki offered, sinking down beside his twin. “Which beats the alternative.”

Thor suspected Loki was speaking from experience, which lent weight to the theory that Loki didn’t know the score. 

“I’ve got something else I need to talk to you about,” Thor said, with a self-deprecating smile. “Yet another change.”

Loki’s face looked stricken. His eyes darted around unfocused as he theorized what the subject could be.

“Do you want to leave m-” Loki began, fading to a whisper, breaking, then regrouping and adjusting course. “Move out?” he amended.

“No,” Thor answered, with a shake of the head. “And I remember your rule: ‘beds should be for nice things and sleeping.’”

Loki was silent. Had no other guesses. Could not, it seemed to Thor, imagine nice things. 

Thor got up and set their phone next to Loki’s on the nightstand, then went to the far side of the bed, took off their robe, and draped it over the chair in the corner.

“Those are cute,” Loki murmured. “Where did you get them?”

Thor had on a lace bralette and panty set that, while devoid of embellishment, was almost entirely sheer. 

“Journelle,” Thor answered, pulling back the covers and climbing into bed while Loki was still perched atop the blankets. “I want everything on that site but most of it won’t fit.”

“Pretty shade of blue,” Loki said, tugging back the sheets and shuffling under them. “Like chicory blossoms.”

“That was what I thought too,” Thor nodded. “Like the ones that grow around the bleachers by the track.”

Loki was curled on his side with his nose only six inches away, wide-eyed and alert, but showing no signs of moving. He was waiting. No longer so nervous, knowing now that the news would be pleasant, but still unable to guess what it might be.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked.

 

Thor wondered whether the entire body could be counted as mind. The neurons wound their way out from the root of the brain, branching through every limb and organ until they could touch the world with a thin membrane of skin. The desire to grab and hold seemed to be housed in the arms and fingers as much as between the ears. The scents of Loki’s hair, breath, and skin, all made of molecules that Thor had breathed in, were known to Thor’s mind because they had touched the olfactory receptors in the nose and left some secret imprint there. The muscles in the base of Thor’s back knew the weight of Loki’s body from having flexed to lift it off the ground. Thor’s cheeks knew that the tip of Loki’s nose was always cool from the hundreds of times it had pressed into them during hugs and kisses. The soundwaves shaped by Loki’s lips and throat had been captured by the shell of Thor’s ear, beaten the drum within, moved the hammer, tickled the hairs that touched the nerves, and sparked that strange lightning that let the waves come to life as words in Thor’s thoughts. Thoughts of Loki's pink mouth and smooth bare body bubbled up under the ribs as the heart's rush and the lungs’ heaving; as the skin that flushed over the breast and throat; as the cock that rolled, grew, and leapt until the idea escaped to spatter Thor's belly.

 

“Just tell me to stop if it’s too much,” Thor said.

Loki smiled and gave an encouraging nod, still expecting something else, probably wondering if Thor was simply contemplating a move from physics to fashion. His gaze was at a slight remove. His body was more focused on listening than on seeing when Thor bounced forward, leaned in, and kissed the corner of his mouth.

“What was that for?” Loki asked, blushing softly, eyes shining and cheeks raised in a hopeless grin.

“That was the abstract,” Thor winked. “Want to keep reading?”

Loki stared for a moment, blankly at first, uncomprehending, then brightly, with delighted shock. Then he scrunched his eyes shut and wrinkled his nose.

“Oh my god,” he groaned. “I mean, I  _ do _ , but I feel like I’d just be encouraging you to make more unforgivable analogies, so I can’t now on principle.”

They both silently quaked with laughter and went red in the face. When their nervous amusement had subsided, time stretched out and opened up around them. No more traveling; they’d arrived at the destination and could relax.

 

Loki hitched his leg over Thor’s hip, propped himself up on his left elbow, and reached to play with Thor’s hair, combing it with his fingers and watching it slide between them until its own weight pulled it through in a rush. He loved the little pattern that was left behind, like wakes trailing four boats, grouping the strands into five sections. Thor held a fingertip over the spot on Loki’s upper arm, two inches from the crease at the inner elbow, where a vein came close enough to the surface that it pressed the skin up against Thor’s finger with every beat of Loki’s heart. This went on until the twins were drowsy and Loki finally leaned backward to switch off the light. Then he nudged Thor into the little spoon position, curled up behind them, and kissed the nape of their neck.

“Can you undo my bra?” Thor murmured. “I don’t like to sleep in them.”

Loki felt his way to the elastic and found the edge of the band, then curled it backward around his finger until the loops slipped free from the hooks. This yielded a pleased hum from Thor, followed by a bit of shuffling to get the thing off. Loki felt the bed dip as Thor’s arm swung up and threw the bra into the corner where it joined the robe that lay on the chair. 

 

They arranged the sheets a bit and then settled with Loki’s arm around Thor’s waist. Within two minutes they were both asleep.

  
  


When he woke, Loki spent ten seconds in perfect bliss, staring at the back of Thor’s tousled blond head while the rain softly shattered against the windowpane. Then he remembered what they’d been doing the night before.

“Oh fuck, the pumpkins!” he cried, then scrambled out of bed and ran to the living room. 

 

Nothing was on fire and the candles had not burned themselves out in the night. Thor had taken care of it. Loki got a glass of water to calm himself down and then went to the bathroom. He caught himself smiling in the mirror before he bent to wash his face and then saw the same expression again after--or perhaps  _ still _ . He wondered if he’d been grinning all night. He gargled some mouthwash to spare Thor from morning breath then stood in his bedroom doorway to stare at his twin, who had rolled over and was staring back.

“Did the doorbell ring or something?” 

“No, that was me,” Loki laughed. “I thought we’d left the candles burning.”

“ _ Oh _ ,” Thor nodded, then patted the pillow to ask Loki back to bed.

Loki climbed in and bellied up to Thor, who squinted a moment and then swatted Loki’s behind.

“You used mouthwash,” Thor scolded, smiling, then clambered over Loki and bounded off to the bathroom.

 

When Thor returned, Loki’s eyebrows shot up.

“Yeah,” Thor admitted, looking down at what had caught Loki’s eye. “They’re not really big enough for mornings.”

The head of Thor’s erection was cheerfully peeking over the low hipster waistband, looking eager to get on with its day. Thor shimmied out of the panties and left them on the floor. Loki felt strangely underdressed in flannel pajama bottoms and a wilted A-shirt, but couldn’t be bothered about it for long because Thor stretched out on top of him and pressed a dozen playful kisses to his face. 

 

And then there was that long, broad back to stroke and that bubble of a butt to squeeze. There were little  _ mmm _ s and  _ ah _ s easily committing themselves to memory, both by virtue of their loveliness and by the helpless flexing of Thor’s hips that accompanied them. The flannel between their skin that had seemed so shabby to Loki only seconds ago was now welcome for the way it lessened friction and provided a teasing layer of distance. The wet heat of Thor’s mouth on his throat made Loki’s belly flex and his hips buck. When Thor added teeth, Loki whined. Thor made a low, pleased sound, at once generous and predatory, like the cat that would let the mouse get away-- _ for now _ . Thor kissed their way slowly up Loki’s neck in soft, damp presses of lips that followed the muscle behind the ear. It made Loki say quiet, breathy things that were not quite words, but managed to mean more. Thor sucked the lobe then, sometimes biting, but lightly, rolling it without bruising or cutting. When Thor’s kisses followed the jaw to the chin, Loki jerked and squeezed his legs around Thor’s hips, hopeful that his lips were next--so Thor kissed his cheeks instead. Then his eyelids, with their thin, trembling skin. Then the brows, where Thor’s lips briefly flinched at the tickling brush of hair.

 

When Thor started kissing their way along the hairline, Loki ran out of patience. He hooked his hands over Thor’s shoulders from behind and started pulling down, urging Thor lower until their mouths were gently panting against each other. Their eyes smiled across the three inch gap between them, bright with some hybrid of surrender and victory. Thor saw the hollowing of the cheeks and the stretching of features that meant Loki’s mouth was falling open, silently asking, which was what Thor had been waiting for. But, still, it was fun to tease, and Thor pressed light, nipping kisses to the upper and lower lips before finally sealing their mouth over Loki’s and slowly licking inside. 

 

Taste had faded with the numbing tingle of alcohol and mint and the familiarity of spit and skin. It was the soft, mossy brushing of tongues that overtook their senses. The twisting flex and unexpected pressures of that strange prehensile muscle. The firm suck of lips and the wet pillow of the inner cheek. The folded satin of the palate and the sharp edges of teeth. The heat and the sensation of splitting apart and joining all at once.

 

The rolling of Thor’s hips tightened Loki’s kisses and filled each twin’s belly with a warm thrill, like a flood of bathwater. Every press of lips and drive of their cocks sent more warmth into their bodies while it dissolved their power to hold onto it. Loki’s cry was caught in Thor’s mouth. Heard by the ears from inside and out. It puffed up Thor’s cheeks with a gust of hot breath that was a shock, startling Thor into a few frantic thrusts and a repayment of Loki’s shout.

 

When Thor went to move, Loki held on tight and shook his head. Freed from the worry of being an uncomfortable weight to bear, Thor fell asleep. Loki fell in love with the sense of being fixed. Pinned between his sibling and the soft bed, which was for nice things and sleeping. Which meant that everything that they’d just done had been classified by Thor as the former. Thor, who took difficult things well, which was not the same as taking them lightly. Loki didn’t feel that he’d been let off the hook so much as that the hook had been deemed foolish and torn down. 

 

When Thor finally got up to use the bathroom, Loki felt bereft. Like his front half was missing and his veins were full of helium that might carry him away. The thought that Thor might not come back to this bed, now or ever, occurred to him. It was possible that his life had begun last night and ended this morning, like a mayfly’s.

 

But Thor did come back, briefly at first--with a warm, wet washcloth to wipe the semen from Loki’s skin after they tugged his sticky pajamas off--and then for three hours while they napped. Throughout their doze, Loki slowly nudged and tugged his twin until Thor’s left arm and leg were draped heavily over him, weighing him safely down to the bed again, telling him Thor was there even as they slept.

  
  


Monday morning was a cruelty for which Loki was not prepared. He had to leave Thor behind in bed and go out into the world. Said world had just undergone such an unflattering adjustment in proportion Loki could barely stomach it--and wondered how it could stomach itself.

 

When classes were through, he met up with Thor at home, waved off questions about what they should eat for dinner, and led Thor to the sofa. 

“Here,” Loki said, patting his breast as he laid down across the cushions. 

“Tell me if I’m squishing you,” Thor said, and stretched out on top of Loki, fitting their head into the curve between the shoulder and neck and feeling Loki’s pulse jump against the side of their face.

They rested for an hour like that before Thor’s growling stomach grew too loud to ignore. Again Loki felt a cold hollow all down his front after his sibling had stepped away.

 

When dinner and homework were finished, Thor asked if Loki wanted to watch a movie, then grinned and waggled their eyebrows when Loki said no, let’s go to bed early instead. They shared a shower, but apart from a few kisses and some soap-sped grab-ass, they left each other alone so that they could get to Loki’s bed a little faster.

 

When Loki laid down on his back in the center of the bed, Thor didn’t need to be asked; they climbed on and stretched out on top of him. Loki’s erection was trapped in the warm space between Thor’s fuzzy thighs and Thor’s arms were wedged under his shoulders, holding onto him and squeezing him as they kissed.

“Where’s your lube?” Thor asked, when they could feel Loki’s cock stuttering across their skin. 

“Top dresser drawer.”

Thor hopped off to get it and Loki felt naked in a way that was different somehow. Stripped, and unpleasant. But Thor hopped straight back on again a second later, straddling Loki’s waist. Thor reached behind themself to paint lube onto Loki’s cock with long, swirling strokes of their fingertips. They spread more onto their own skin, dabbing it over their hole and up through the cleft of their ass before stroking it onto their cock in slow twists that Loki couldn’t look away from. Thor was strangely luminous against the white background of the room, dimming it somehow, though their skin was darker. Loki thought of Blake’s _“What!” it will be questioned,_ _“_ _when the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea!" Oh! no, no! I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying_ _"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!"_

“What are you grinning about?” Thor asked, but Loki only smiled and shook his head.

 

Thor scooted back a bit, then rose and fell a short distance, slowly bouncing, letting Loki’s cock slide between their cheeks. The pressure where they were touching was light and playful, sometimes even tickling, and Thor would giggle and bunch up their shoulders while gooseflesh spread over their skin and their nipples went tight.

 

When they both began to squirm at the teasing, Thor reached back and pressed their hand to Loki’s cock, pushing it flush against their skin, tight enough that the same slow movements had an entirely different effect. Thor’s left hand was on their cock now, tugging it firmly and wringing the head with every pull. 

 

Loki’s flanks were hot where they were clamped between Thor’s thighs, and their mingled sweat made a pleasant itch where it ran down between them. Thor’s weight hit Loki’s hips with every fall, pressing him down into the mattress, shifting his whole body, catching him up in Thor’s gravity. 

 

Thor’s pace stumbled slightly at the end, but the sight of Thor’s semen spurting onto his chest more than compensated Loki for the break in rhythm. Thor felt the warm drops of come against the base of their back and the top of their ass as Loki twitched beneath them. 

 

Thor was unsurprised and happy to oblige when Loki asked them to lean down and rest on top of him. 

“We’re going to need another shower,” Thor murmured, as semen spread out where their bellies pressed together. Loki shrugged and rubbed Thor’s back, enjoying the way Thor’s whole body was caging him in from his hips up.

  
  
  


The pattern held. Loki wanted Thor on top of him whenever he could get it. If they sat on the couch, he offered his lap as a pillow or a footstool. In bed he wanted Thor to sit on his face, ride his cock from on top, or fuck him face down into the mattress from behind. If sleeping prone atop Loki’s body all night had been feasible, Thor had no doubt that Loki would have asked for that too. 

 

“What’s this about?” Thor asked, at the end of November, while they were stretched out on the sofa in Loki’s favorite position.

“Hmm?”

“Me on top of you,” Thor clarified. “It’s your favorite.”

“I don’t know,” Loki sighed. “I feel anchored. Sturdy. Warm. Like I’m in the right place.”

“It just fits, eh?” Thor smiled, and Loki nodded. 

They lay quietly like that for several minutes before Thor spoke again. Loki thought they had fallen asleep.

“Does that mean you don’t feel those things when we’re not like this?”

“Correct,” Loki said, nodding once.

“Fuck.”

“Yep.”

 

Thor did the conversions: adrift, fragile, cold, lost. The wrong place for the siblings to be was apart. It was also the place they had to spend half of their time. Thor wondered about place-holders.

 

The first one Thor tried was the belt from the grey robe Loki was so fond of. It was soft, stretchy bamboo, which eased Thor’s mind because it would be difficult to tie too tight. Thor took Loki to their own room, got him set up in bed with a book he needed to read, and bound his ankles to the bed frame. When Thor asked Loki about it later, Loki smiled throughout his answers. He said it reminded him of when you tie a string around your finger to make sure you remember something important. That the fact that it was Thor’s bed was a relief, because it was a place he knew Thor would come back to. That he knew Thor wouldn’t leave him tied up, so that when Thor went out to the kitchen or the bathroom, Loki had no thought that they wouldn’t come back.

 

They tried bedsheets next, with Thor rolling Loki up in one like a mummy, tying a loose bow around him with a scarf, and leaving him on the bed or the sofa, looking like a spider’s lunch. Loki liked this too. He especially enjoyed not being able to move because it made it so that Thor had to give him everything. Bring him a glass of water and hold it up to help him drink it. Unbind him to let him go to the bathroom. Change the music or what was on the TV. Thor liked it because it forced Loki to ask for things.

  
  


When Loki asked Thor if they would possibly be willing to piss on him, Thor sighed and said, “I knew this was coming.”

Loki was nearly vibrating as they sat together on the sofa watching TV while Thor drank glass after glass of water. 

“All right,” Thor said, only halfway through the fifth episode. “Get in the shower.” 

Loki didn’t run, but he thought about it.

“Ready?” Thor asked, standing between Loki’s ankles as Loki lay on the floor of the tub.

“Yes.”

The color wasn’t as intense as Loki had hoped, but to see a seemingly endless rush of water coming from Thor’s cock while it was soft was certainly something--he’d been imagining Thor with an erection every time he’d pictured this, and now he couldn’t think why. But the heat of it was what made it really wonderful: the temperature of Thor’s breath and blood. Ninety-eight point six. The surface of the skin operated at a relatively cool ninety-three degrees, and the difference made Loki’s eyes go wide as the stream hit his belly. When Loki admitted his minor disappointment in the negligible color of the piss, Thor got beets at the grocery store, juiced them, and drank them with dinner. Loki shrieked with joy when Thor pissed pink all over him.

  
  


These were all fine solutions for when they were home, but Loki could hardly go out in public in any of these states. He wanted nothing to do with collars, and walking around like Linus with a security blanket held no appeal. Thor started sending Loki out in their favorite clothes, saying, “I’m only loaning you this. You can’t keep it.” The knowledge that it was Thor’s and that it would be retrieved pleased Loki to the point of blushing every time he looked down at what he was wearing. 

 

Thor wondered about jewelry. Rings often begged questions, and that wouldn’t do. The necklaces the twins found pretty were too fragile for everyday wear, and too loose to be reminiscent of binding. Thor did a search for a bracelet and was disappointed with the offerings until they looked at the settings:  _ Default _ , and then resorted the results as  _ Price - high to low. _

 

“Got you something,” Thor said, handing over a small box when Loki came back from his late class on Wednesday. “You’ll have to let me know what you think.”

Loki hummed, pleased to be opening presents when Christmas was still over a week away.

The bracelet was based on a bridle. It had a bit at the center, and leather straps like reins that attached at each side and wrapped around the wrist, then buckled like a belt.

“Well?” Thor asked, after Loki had it on.

“Perfect fit, Loki grinned, turning his arm to admire it. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> please don't comment or repost.


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